Karla Ramos and Jose Webster had a long marriage and some insist it was a stable one.

Their life together ended Saturday, police said, when he forced her into an industrial furnace where he worked. Then he followed her into the fatal heat that was meant to harden steel.

Relatives spoke with finality Sunday afternoon about the incident because they said two little girls witnessed their father beating Ramos before he killed her.

"Daddy threw Mommy in the lava," one of the children screamed as she ran to family members Saturday.

But on Sunday officials were still using tentative terms, such as "believed" and "apparent," when they described how the couple died and why.

Family and neighbors say the couple got along, showed no signs of discord and had four children during their 11-year marriage.

Two of the children were held captive at the plant in south Akron where their parents died, escaping uninjured after they witnessed at least one of the deaths.

Itza Ramos, sister of the dead woman, said Webster, 36, worked at Summit Heat Treating, only a quarter mile from their Beardsley Street duplex in Akron's Firestone Park neighborhood.

During an interview Sunday at the duplex, Ramos said she had driven to the plant the night before, looking for her sister after the girls ran home, one of them yelling, "Call my auntie. My dad killed my mom."

Itza Ramos said her sister and nieces had gone to the plant about 8 p.m. because Webster "called her and asked her to pick him up," after his shift ended.

Daughters Kelly, 9, and Karlynne, 4, said they were tied up inside the plant, according to relatives, but family members would not say how the children or their mother got inside.

The Summit County Medical Examiner's office said in a news release that the episode occurred after "verbal altercations over the past few days."

Itza Ramos said her sister had never complained of violence or called police on her husband.

But Itza Ramos was the one who called police Saturday night from the couple's home after she found her sister's car at the plant, but could not get in the building.

"You'd never expect this. They were a real happy couple," said James Williams, 17, cousin and nephew of family members who lived next door to the couple.

Itza Ramos said the children, ages 1 through 9, are with relatives. "They're doing OK," she said.

Representatives of Summit Heat Treating refused to answer questions.

The Summit Heat Web site says the company has a staff of 15, and describes a range of heat-treating services.

The procedures are all methods for treating metal, mainly steel, by subjecting it to temperatures that can range from 350 to 1,900 degrees, according to Gary Michal, the LTV Steel Professor of Metallurgy at Case Western Reserve University.

Michal, chairman of the university's depart ment of materials sci ence and engineering, said in a telephone inter view that the machines described on the Web site can be fueled by gas or electricity.

Itza Ramos said she did not know how long Webster worked there, or how long the couple lived nearby. Both were born in Honduras. Karla Ramos, 26, came to the United States about 15 years ago.